Tag: middle earth

This blog is part five of my journal about my unexpected journey to New Zealand, as winner of The Hobbit Fan Fellowship Contest. Today we flew to Queenstown and did a tour around filming locations of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in Paradise.

THIS BLOG IS PART FIVE OF MY JOURNAL ABOUT MY UNEXPECTED JOURNEY TO NEW ZEALAND, AS WINNER OF THE HOBBIT FAN FELLOWSHIP CONTEST!

Day 3: Hobbit & LOTR Filming Locations

We had to get up early upon our hobbit feet to the airport of Rotorua. With Air New Zealand we flew in a private Hobbit Fan Fellowship airplane to our next destination: Queenstown!

On our way to Queenstown with Air New ZealandArrived in Queenstown!

Queentown is located on the southern island of New Zealand. My jaw dropped when we got off the airplane: what a different landscape! On the northern island we saw green little hills, but the airport of Queenstown lies in a valley formed by huge mountains with beautiful white snowy tops, close to the azure blue lake Wakatipu. This was probably the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.

We were greeted by the crew of Nomad Safaris to take us on a tour around filming locations of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit triologies. The jeep’s license plates were even in style: our jeep’s called Eowyn.

With Nomad Safaris touring around QueenstownIn the jeep with the lovely Emma Bell, our host from Tourism New ZealandJeep’s licensce plate Eowyn

We were brought on top of Queenstown Hill, the filming location of the most epic safety video ever made by Air New Zealand, starring Dean O’Gorman, Sylvester McCoy, Elijah Wood, Richard Taylor and Peter Jackson.

Here we had a gorgeous view over Queenstown, lake Wakatipu and The Remarkables, or Extendables as Peter Jackson called them, the mountains which he used to represent the Misty Mountains. Moreover, we saw the hill from which Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) falls after the fight with Sharku (Jed Brophy) during the Warg attack in The Two Towers.

Next stop was Arcadia Station in Paradise near Glenorchy. To get here, we drove alongside lake the gorgeous lake Wakatipu surrounded by mountains. As the name predicts, Paradise is absolutely stunning! The colors, the mountains, the forests… No wonder that this area were the filming locations of Isengard and Beorn’s home.

Paradise, filming location of IsengardIsengard in The Lord of the RingsGandalf and Bilbo meeting BeornParadise, the filming location of Beorn’s homeWith beautiful trees

On the road to Arcadia Station we received another video message from Peter Jackson in which he announced a treasure hunt. In the forest around Beorn’s home there was something hidden. The one who would find it, would earn a seat next to Peter Jackson during the private screening of The Battle of the Five Armies on our last dayin Wellington. The 150 contestants tried to find this treasure, which was a kind of chaotic. But Ann from Belgium and our Wizard team found the precious: a huge golden ring. Go team Wizard!

Wizard Ann from Belgium with the precious (Photo by Tourism New Zealand)

After our afternoon tea and picknick with mr. Frodo scones we travelled further from Glenorchy to Twelve Mile Delta. Alongside the road where the filming locations of the Elven Lothlórien Woods and the site of the battle of Amon Hen, where Boromir is fatally wounded in the battle with the uruk-hai Lurz and Merry and Pippin are captured.

Hobbit PicknickBattle of Amon HenForests where the Battle of Amon Hen is filmed

Twelve Mile Delta is the filming location of Ithilien. Here is where Frodo, Sam and Gollum cook some ‘paters’, encouter the Oliphaunts and are being captured by Faramir and the rangers of Gondor.

“That’s where they sat, yeah!”Oliphaunts in The Two TowersThe filming location of Ithilien, Twelve Mile DeltaFrodo and Sam at Ithilien in The Two TowersOur best acting skills as Frodo and SamShot by a Gondor ranger’s arrowMatagouri thorns were used by early Māori as tattooing needlesSome beautiful landscapes around QueenstownSome beautiful landscapes around Queenstown

We ended our safari at AJ Hackett Bungy, above de Kawarau River. In The Lord of the Rings this is the river where the Argonath are located. Here we had diner and had the opportunity to zipline and to bungy jump: a 43 meters drop. Like Peter Jackson mentioned, “My brain isn’t wire to jump off a bridge”. I couldn’t agree more, so I didn’t jump, but the brave Arjen did.

I really understand now why New Zealand is called real Middle-earth. The filming locations we saw today were almost unreal. Everywhere we looked felt like we’re out of this world… in Middle-earth.

Here’s the video blog of day three by Tourism New Zealand:

In my next blog I will tell you about day four of The Hobbit Fan Fellowship journey, when we did a tour with Southern Discoveries around the beautiful area of Queenstown and we shot some zombies in 4D…

This blog is part two of my journal about my unexpected journey to New Zealand, as winner of The Hobbit Fan Fellowship Contest!

On the 3rd of October I got the most excited e-mail of my life: I was the potential winner of The Hobbit Fan Fellowship Contest in Holland! Wait, what… potential winner? What doest that mean?

I was at work when I received the e-mail. My colleagues probably thought I sufferd from a stroke when I tried to tell them the news. They didn’t believe it (neither did I yet), so we all gathered around my desk, reading the e-mail about being a ‘potential winner’. The organisation had to make sure me and my guest met their entry requirements. So like our lives depended on it, we rushed to fill in forms, get our passports (we only had an identification card with which you cannot travel outside of Europe) and an ESTA, all within three days!

Meanwhile on Twitter, #Hobbitfancontest went mad! It was known that 75 winners got a message and how many winners each country had (only one from Holland… a.k.a. me!). People were dying from anticipation (figuratively speaking), but we weren’t allowed to talk about it yet! Finally on the 23rd of October it was official: we were going on an adventure to real Middle-earth, New Zealand! I was so relieved! And we received a lovely postcard from Sir Peter Jackson himself.

A postcard from Peter Jackson

The winners from over the whole world found each other on Facebook and a secret group was created. It was so nice to speak with everyone about the contest, to see all of their videos and get to know each other better. Only seven days left and we would really see each other!

We got even more excited when we got the initerary! We could not believe what Warner Bros, Air New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand had planned for us: visiting Hobbiton and other filming locations across New Zealand, visiting Weta workshop and of course, meeting Sir Peter Jackson at the private screening of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in Wellington!

The Hobbit Fan Fellowship Initerary

This was kind of my reaction:

I still couldn’t believe that this was happing. But I better start believing, because on October 31st me and my lucky boyfriend got up at 5.00AM to get to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. We travelled from Amsterdam to London, from London to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to Auckland. A 25 hour flight to the other side of the world. We got closer and closer to Middle-earth. During our flight from Los Angeles to Auckland, we travelled with Air New Zealand, it’s lovely crew and the most epic safety video ever made in the style of Middle-earth, which they show on every flight.

The time difference between Holland and New Zealand is precisely 12 hours (for us the New Zealanders live in the future), so I felt a bit like a time traveller and had no idea which day it was. But according to our initerary, we arrived on Sunday the 2nd of November at 7.00AM in Auckland, New Zealand! Our journey to Middle-earth was about to begin.

Read about day one of our unexpected journey to Middle-earth in my next blog!

“If I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest away from home I’ve ever been.” – Samwise Gamgee, (FOTR)